Eleanor - Three months, four months

Three months...and twelve days... (April 8, 2017)

Four months (April 28, 2017)

Once again, two months have flown by in the blink of an eye. All of the sudden, my little newborn is not so little anymore. Eleanor, you are bright-eyed, curious, emotive, sweet, smiley, easygoing, and feeling so much older than just your short four months on this earth.

On the health front, you are doing great. At your four month check-up last week, you checked in as a long skinny baby who is pretty darn ahead of the curve when it comes to developmental milestones. It was nice to be at the doctor and have only good news. Earlier in March, you had a weird vomiting episode that sent us back up to the St. Mary's emergency department to get checked out. The good news is that everything was fine, inside-belly-wise (you tackled the repeat upper GI test like a pro!). The bad news is that you had sprouted an incisional hernia under your previous incision (a little soft lump poking out of your belly), nothing that required urgent action, but which, they told us, would need surgery to fix at some point.

When we met with Dr. Ishitani the next week for a consult, we ended up scheduling your surgery for the week before Easter, because he had lots of open space in his schedule, and so why not? Your surgery was a full-family adventure. We went up to Rochester the night before, ate some yummy pizza, and then settled into a motel room, all four of us together, for a short night of sleep before our 6:15 a.m. report time. We got to the hospital, hung out in pre-op for a while (you got to wear an adorable alphabet onesie, and they brought iPads for Sam and you to play with...even though you really aren't iPad age), met a lot of nurses and anesthesiologist, and then it was time for them to take you back. They warned us that it was a very short surgery, and they were right! It was only about 45 minutes later when Dr. Ishitani came out to tell us that he was done and all looked good. I got to come hold you in recovery, and you were sleepy but not in too much pain. You did so well, in fact, that we were able to hang out in Rochester a while afterwards, eating lunch at HuHot and wandering the mall for a little while. Your recovery has been quick and easy so far. At your post-op checkup last week, everything was looking good, so we are thankful! And hopeful that we are finally done with this whole saga.

Sleepy smiles in recovery

As I said, you have weathered all this like a pro. You are still my easygoing girl. You get really upset when you have a wet or dirty diaper, but start giggling as soon as we lay you down to change you. You get angry when you are hungry, but that, too, is easily remedied. Sometimes you get fussy when you are tired, and that is a little harder to manage (you are hard to convince to fall asleep if it isn't you're own idea!), but really, you are so happy most all of the time. You smile at us freely. At anyone who smiles at you, in fact. Your smiles these days are intentional and relational. You are starting to show bits of intentional affection, reaching out to hold our hands for comfort, or snuggling when you need reassurance. You babble a lot. You do some of the "lll-guh" sounds that Sam did when he first started exploring his voice. You like making high-pitched screamy noises, just to see what your voice can do. And lots of "ahhhhhs" in all ranges of your voice.

You have recently gotten coordinated enough to get two fingers into your mouth to suck on, instead of just trying to shove your fist into your mouth. It is neat to watch you more and more able to self-soothe with that maneuver. Except it also means you have no more interest in pacifiers, and by extension, you are not easily calmed by simply sticking a pacifier in your mouth. You seem to favor the index/middle finger combination, but occasionally you choose the middle/ring finger combo. Your hands are now always drooly. Your face, too. You have figured out how to blow bubbles, and you do it freely. I think that there's also a chance that you are in the beginning stages of teething, so that contributes to the drooling and to your desire to chomp and suck on anything. Your hands, my hands, my arm, our clothes, whatever you can get your mouth on!

Fingers, meet mouth.

You have now survived your first airplane flights! We flew out to New Jersey the week after Easter to visit Grammy and Pop, Aunt Ruth and Uncle Chris, and Uncle Dan, Aunt Jayne, and new baby cousin August.

Easter family photo!

We played at the park, went to Brooklyn to the children's museum, wandered around Princeton, ate lots of family meals, and had a really great week full of family time. You and baby August are so cute together! He is three weeks younger than you, but is at least a pound heavier. We had a blast watching you to be babies together.



You were a champ on both flights - did a lot of eating and sleeping on the plane. For our return trip, we had a nice flight attendant who moved us into an empty row near the front of the plane, with an empty seat next to me, so I could lay you down and watch you wiggle and babble.

Happy on the airplane!

You have continued to be a good sleeper, for the most part, although in the last few days, you are showing signs of the dreaded four-month sleep regression. You like to do a "sleepytime" feeding about the same time that Sam is going to bed, around 8:30 p.m. And then you fall asleep and are content to stay asleep in your bouncy seat downstairs until at least midnight or so. We haven't quite figured out whether it is better for us all to head up to bed with you earlier, or if we might as well wait you out downstairs, staying awake and watching random cooking shows on PBS, or dozing on the couch. When you wake up from your first sleep of the night, you are usually pretty hungry and angry about it. We rush you upstairs, change your diaper, throw you into a swaddle, and I settle on the bed to feed you before your angry noises wake up Sam. Prior to the last few days, you would fall asleep after that feeding, or at least get drowsy, and were content to be put down into your bassinet, waking up after another couple of hours for one more overnight feed, and then waking up around six for a morning feed (and then usually another short bout of sleeping). The last couple nights, though, you have decided that you don't want to sleep in your bassinet, and you really just want to eat all the time. So we've been awake every hour or so from midnight to six a.m. Mama is sleepy, baby Ellie!

Sweet girl, you are so curious and excited about your world. Your legs kick with joy all the time. You smile when you see me, talk back when you hear me. Your world is expanding so quickly and you are so interested in it that you are a very distracted eater these days. You eat and then stop to look around. You eat and then stop to look at me and smile. You eat and then grab your burp cloth or grasp my hand. You roll over from your back to your belly, and you hold up your head and body like a baby much older than your four months.

I only have one more month of taking you with me to the office full days, and I have to say, I'm really going to miss you! You have been a really easy office baby, content to play on the floor or nap or snuggle when I need to get work done. We girls have to stick together, baby Ellie! You are my beautiful girl. I can't wait to see all that is next for you as you keep growing up so darn fast. I love you!